Acer Predator G1 Review and Ratings

Editors’ Rating:

Our Verdict:
Its design is polarizing and external power bricks bulky, but with GeForce GTX 1080 graphics and a smart component mix, the compact Predator G1 is powerful enough for 4K gaming, and surprisingly quiet. Read More…

What We Liked…

4K-capable gaming performance

Excellent cooling

Creative case lighting

Includes good-quality mechanical keyboard and mouse

Two-year warranty

What We Didn’t…

External power adapters enlarge footprint

Difficult to upgrade

Love-it-or-hate-it design

SSD isn't PCI Express

Acer Predator G1 Review

Table of Contents

Introduction, Design & Features

Just as our inner sci-fi geek wouldn’t judge Yoda by his size, neither would our inner gamer judge a desktop by its physical dimensions. This turned out to be correct thinking when the Acer Predator G1 arrived at our doorstep. This small-form-factor (SFF) desktop packs as much power as a midtower in a 16-liter case that’s half the volume.

The Predator G1 is the smallest desktop in the Predator lineup, Acer’s gaming brand. In early 2016, we reviewed its midtower brother, the Predator G6. We came away less impressed than we expected to be, mostly because of its polarizing design. As we’ll discuss shortly, although the Predator G1 looks similar, we think the design works better on a small chassis. We’ll stop short of entering it in a beauty contest, though.

At the time of this writing, the $2,299 Predator G1 we’re reviewing was the only available configuration in the United States, although when we were wrapping up the editing process, we did spot a second option on Amazon, which halved the RAM (to 16GB) and stepped the graphics card down to a still-potent GeForce GTX 1070, and sold for $1,899. Inside our small (small for a gaming desktop, anyway) $2,299 review configuration is an Intel Core i7-6700 quad-core processor, Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 graphics, 32GB of RAM, a 512GB solid-state drive (SSD), and a 2TB hard drive. We weren’t kidding when we said the G1 packs a lot of power. The price also includes a two-year warranty, and a gaming-grade keyboard and mouse.

We found a few areas where we wished Acer did something different, but on the whole the Predator G1 shaped up nicely. But if you’re spending this much, you’ll probably want to know where there's room for improvement, so without further ado…

Design

The Predator G1 shares the tank-tread exterior design we didn’t exactly give high praise to on its bigger brother, the Predator G6, when we reviewed it earlier in 2016. However, the design seems to work better on the G1’s chassis, probably due to its smaller size. The larger version looked like half of a tire on our desk.

You'd still probably have to transport it to Yautja Prime for its beauty to be fully appreciated, though. Looks this aggressive tend to fall into the love-it-or-hate-it category. We’re in the love-it category. Well, we think.

The external case is plastic, but it feels solid from all angles. The Predator G1 is hefty for such a small PC, at 17.1 pounds. The metal-frame chassis on the inside is bare steel, but it’s not visible from the outside. Unlike the bigger Predator G6, the G1 has an attractive red covering over the back. Predator badges adorn both of the side doors, and each door has a red-ringed perimeter. The design is atypical for an SFF desktop, for sure.

And the Predator G1 is a true SFF desktop, measuring just 16.5 tall, 13.7 inches front to back, and 4.3 inches wide. Its compact dimensions don’t tell the entire story, though, as not everything needed to run this desktop lives inside its chassis. The power supplies are external. Yes, plural supplies; the G1 is powered by two 230-watt laptop-style adapters.

A cradle is included to hold the two power bricks together (seen above). We’re disappointed about the external power-supply setup, as it greatly enlarges the footprint of this otherwise compact desktop, and the whole package of power bricks is bulky enough that it can be tough to hide behind a desk. The competing Origin Chronos VR is smaller than the Acer in every dimension, yet it manages to keep all of its requisite guts on the inside.

The unit’s exterior case lighting is confined to the front panel. The Predator logo, the “V Badge” in the middle, and vertical highlights at the bottom are independently changeable via the pre-installed PredatorSense software (shown below). Each zone supports the 16.7 million colors of the RGB spectrum. There are different lighting patterns, such as "Pulsing" and "Meteor Showers," but the "Marquee" pattern is what’s truly unique. It slow-paints a color left to right across the V Badge or highlights sections. The speed and frequency can be adjusted for extra effect.

One of the Predator G1’s other unique exterior features is its pair of red headphone hangers (one of them shown in the closeup below). They slide out of either side of the G1, near the front, keeping your headphones and/or your VR headset off the floor or desk when not in use. Little things like this can set desktops apart.

The desktop’s left panel slides off to the rear after removing the two Phillips-head screws holding it on...

The inside is fairly tidy, as far as cable routing goes, but it's a few strokes short of elegant. The bare steel case isn’t much to look at, but again can’t be seen from the outside. The aluminum CPU cooler and fan at mid-center gets its air from a vent in the side door, while the centrifugal fan behind it pushes warm air out the backside. This arrangement seemed to work, as we noticed a steady stream of warm air coming out the rear vent while gaming. (More on the thermals later.)

Next to the CPU cooler are the four memory slots. SFF desktops tend to use smaller motherboards with less than four slots, so seeing four here is a pleasant surprise. All four slots are populated by an 8GB DIMM in our configuration, totaling 32GB. Nothing obstructs removing and replacing the memory. The rightmost slot is close to the 5.25-inch cage, so be careful with aftermarket memory that uses extra-wide heatsinks.

The Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 graphics card is mounted parallel to the motherboard courtesy of a PCI Express slot adapter (behind the metal "Predator"-stamped bracket in the image above). The card draws in air from the opposite side of the chassis. The steel shroud is held in by at least six screws, and it wasn’t obvious to us how the whole contraption would come out even if we had removed it. Doubtless, the 2.5-inch drive bay sitting on top of the shroud would need to be removed in the process. It’s not populated in this configuration, but it has the Serial ATA and power cables available, so you could easily just drop in a drive. Removing the four screws holding the bracket in place allows it to come off. That’s simple enough.

Above the 2.5-inch bay is the single 5.25-inch bay. It houses both the vertically mounted 3.5-inch hard drive (a 2TB Seagate model in our configuration) and, underneath it, the slim, laptop-style DVD burner. The optical drive appears to be held in by two screws, but unscrewing them is a challenge, because the CPU cooler gets in the way of a screwdriver.

How to get the 3.5-inch drive out is even more of a mystery. We saw two visible screws holding it in along the visible edge, but we couldn’t determine if there were two other screws on the far side. Taking off the front plastic shroud proved frustrating, as it didn’t want to fully come off even after we removed two screws holding it in at the top. That tells us it wasn’t meant to come off.

Also frustrating is the access to the M.2 slot on the motherboard. We had to peer around with a handheld flashlight before we located it to the right of the memory slots, underneath the 5.25-inch bay. Upgrading this would presumably require removing the 5.25-inch bay structure. Given our difficulties getting the 3.5-inch drive out of the 5.25-inch bay, how you might accomplish this also remains a mystery.

Based on our adventures, the Predator G1’s simple upgrades are limited to swapping out the memory and adding a drive to the the 2.5-inch bay. There’s no doubt the graphics card, 3.5-inch drive, and M.2 drive are replaceable, but the job wasn’t intended to be done by a casual end user.

Features

The Predator G1’s port selection might not be as robust as that of a mid-size ATX tower, with "just" five USB ports. But there should be plenty here for most users.

The front of the desktop has the power button at the top, and the tray-load DVD burner below it. The bottom half of the front holds the full-size SD card reader, a USB Type-C 3.1 port, a USB Type-A 3.0, and independent headphone and microphone jacks.

The rest of the ports are on the back. At the top are six audio ports; S/PDIF and 7.1 surround jacks. Below those are four USB Type-A 3.0, plus the Killer E2400 Ethernet port.

Mid-way down, you'll find the two AC power adapter jacks. The Predator G1's dual 230-watt laptop-style power adapters connect here. As we noted earlier, the fact this SFF desktop uses external power adapters significantly increases its footprint and also doesn't look great unless you can find a place to hide the two big bricks. And, at the very least, we'd have liked to see the power plugs near the bottom of the case so they don't have to dangle from the center-back of the chassis.

At the bottom, the GeForce GTX 1080 card provides its usual assortment of three full-size DisplayPorts, an HDMI out, and legacy DVI-D.

Internal wireless is provided by a Killer 1535 card supporting the 802.11ac band. Bluetooth 4.1 is also present. Wireless reception was good in our tests, despite the fact that the antennas are built into the chassis.

Mouse & Keyboard

The Predator G1 includes a gaming-grade mouse and keyboard in its price. This is a mild surprise, as most gaming desktops we test don't include anything more than a very basic set, if peripherals are included in the box at all.

The Acer Scorpius low-profile mechanical keyboard has a hefty metal frame and detachable cable. The latter is thick, braided, and strong. The click-clack feel of the keys is engaging. Each keystroke is crisp and authoritative. As is generally the case with mechanical keyboards, you'll be heard typing away across a room with this one.

The keyboard has a unique design in that there's no bulky edge running around the outermost keys. You can look underneath the keys and see their mechanical switches. This looks great in the dark with its backlighting, and it should also make cleaning the keyboard easier down the line. Only one backlighting color can be set at a time, but the entire RGB spectrum (16.7 million colors) is yours to choose from. Different lighting patterns, such as pulse and breathing, are available.

Finding the Acer Scorpius software (shown below) to change the keyboard’s settings was frustrating, as it wasn’t easily searchable on Acer’s support site. We eventually found it, but in reality, it should have been pre-installed on the Predator G1. [Editors' Note: Acer contacted us after this review posted and noted that the Scorpius software does come pre-installed on production units of the Predator G1; it wasn't on the review unit we received since it was an early production sample.]

The software’s interface is primitive and difficult to use. Eventually, we figured out how to set macros and change the colors. Five profiles can be stored in the software in addition to "PC mode." To switch between profiles, you need to press Fn+F6. When in any of the profiles, the function-row keyset (F1 to F12) turn into dedicated macro keys, whereas in PC mode they function as just F1 to F12. That’s a creative way to make the most out of the available keys. PC mode also disables the Windows key.

Besides the software interface, the only other downside we noticed about this keyboard is its lack of ancillary ports. There are no USB ports or headphone/microphone jacks in the keyboard itself. We suppose it’s the price to pay to be low-profile.

The mouse isn’t of the same caliber as the keyboard. Its plastic design feels very light, though the low-profile shape fits small and medium-size hands well. With the exception of the slightly rubberized piece at the back of the arch, the rest of the surfaces are smooth plastic.

The center button behind the scroll wheel switches between DPI levels. We aren’t sure what DPI settings this mouse supports, but even on a 4K display, it appeared to have plenty of sensitivity.

The actual shape of the mouse is ambidextrous, although it’s intended for right-handers as only the left side of the mouse has thumb buttons. We’d like to see another set of buttons on the other side. Unlike the keyboard, the mouse’s cable is permanently attached. It’s also sheathed in plastic or rubber, not braided like the keyboard cable.

While the included mouse is fairly basic, it’s miles ahead of the generic two-button mice included with most desktops—again, if one is even included at all.

Components

The Predator G1 is only small on the outside. Internally, this powerhouse has the same level of components as we'd routinely find in mid- and full-ATX tower gaming rigs.

Naturally, the chassis is too small to fit two graphics cards, so an SLI or CrossFire setup isn't an option. The Nvidia GTX 1080 graphics card in our review unit didn't exactly have us wishing for another card, though. This is the second-most-potent graphics card available as of November 2016, sitting behind the loftily priced Nvidia Titan X in Nvidia's current-generation "Pascal" lineup. The GTX 1080 has just enough performance for maxed-out 4K gaming, as our benchmarks will soon show.

The Predator's Core i7-6700 processor isn't the "K" variant, meaning it doesn't have unlocked multipliers for overclocking. The upside of this processor is that it does have a lower thermal-design-power (TDP) rating of 65 watts, as compared to 91 watts for the Core i7-6700K. That means it's arguably better suited to run inside a small chassis like the Predator G1’s. We suspect Acer chose the Core i7-6700 over its "K" sibling for this very reason. It's not as fast as the "K," with a 3.4GHz base clock and 4GHz Turbo Boost, whereas the Core i7-6700K is 4GHz base with a 4.2GHz Turbo Boost. (And, the Core i7-6700K can be potentially even faster with overclocking.) However, the i7-6700 is still the second-fastest quad-core processor on the market, and a great choice for demanding tasks.

For being an SFF tower, we were surprised to discover the Predator G1 packed four memory (RAM) slots. The system supports DDR4 running at 2,133MHz. The configuration in our review unit is four 8GB DIMMs, totaling 32GB. That's half the maximum supported by the motherboard (64GB). Given all four slots are occupied, you'll need to replace modules to upgrade. For this reason, we'd have much preferred a two-16GB module configuration. That said, 32GB is overkill for gaming, so the need to upgrade for that purpose isn’t yet on the horizon.

Storage is generally the main sacrifice when going with a smaller desktop. The Predator G1 has an M.2 Type 2280 slot (for drives 80mm in length), plus the 2.5-inch and 3.5-inch bays we mentioned earlier. The first mentioned is occupied by a 512GB Lite-On SSD, and the latter the 2TB Seagate desktop hard drive in our review unit. The 2.5-inch drive bay is empty and available for expansion. We’re disappointed that the Lite-On M.2 SSD in our configuration uses the SATA bus, and not PCI Express. It’s still plenty fast for general use, but given how swiftly PCI Express/NVMe SSDs have gained popularity in 2016, we’d like to see something like the Samsung SSD 950 Pro or the brand-new SSD 960 EVO here.

Windows 10 Home is installed on the SSD. This configuration leaves the economical hard drive for storage, but the SSD is sizable enough to fit a number of your favorite games, as well as the operating system.

The pre-installed software on our review unit was minimal. There were no anti-virus trials or similar annoyances. The Acer Care Center utility (shown below) is mildly useful. It can tell you if your drivers are up to date, has drive cleanup functionality, and can be used to burn recovery discs. (You can actually do the latter provided you have a couple of blank DVDs, thanks to the Predator G1's built-in DVD burner.)

As we mentioned earlier, the Predator G1 as we reviewed it sells for $2,299. We put together a mock DIY build for about $1,800 with a similar loadout of components, excluding a good-quality keyboard or mouse. Add in the latter, and you’re just a few feet south of $2,000. That makes the price difference between building it and buying it under 20 percent, which is generally about the going rate for buying versus building.

We also configured an Origin Chronos SFF desktop for $2,594 equipped much the same as our Predator G1, again without the keyboard and mouse. The price gap there is more significant, although the Origin system is smaller and manages to integrate its power supply inside the case.

Overall, we’d judge the Predator G1 a fair value based on its component loadout alone. Remember that Acer provides a full two-year warranty on this desktop, and its unique design can’t be bought aftermarket, so some of the value isn’t all vested in performance.

Thermals

The challenge of cooling the Predator G1 was made a little less tricky by Acer using external power supplies. The twin included adapters are much like those included with gaming notebooks. They warm up while gaming, which is normal.

The Core i7-6700 processor in our configuration is cooled by a circular aluminum cooler. It draws in air through the side door. Exhaust air is carried out the rear by a centrifugal fan. The GTX 1080 graphics card relies on its own cooling fan, drawing air through the other side of the case.

All three fans are practically inaudible under load. The GTX 1080’s fan is the only one that noticeably spools to a higher RPM, but it’s difficult to pick out unless you're somewhere that's extremely quiet. The Predator G1 is about as quiet as any powerful SFF system we've tested; we had to listen for it even in a quiet room. There’s no whine or motor noise of any kind. The thick doors help shield the fan sound.

Table of Contents

Acer Predator G1

Our Verdict:
Its design is polarizing and external power bricks bulky, but with GeForce GTX 1080 graphics and a smart component mix, the compact Predator G1 is powerful enough for 4K gaming, and surprisingly quiet.

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